Rules of Betrayal [Audiobook, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

Christopher Reich (Author), Paul Michael (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 13, 2010

The most riveting novel yet in Christopher Reich’s New York Times bestselling series—featuring Dr. Jonathan Ransom and his undercover-agent wife Emma, a dangerous woman with a mysterious past who has gone rogue in the high-stakes, serpentine world of international spies.

In 1980, a secret American B-52 crashes high in a remote mountain range on the Pakistan–Afghanistan border. Nearly thirty years later, and spanning locales from those peaks to New York City, a terrible truth will be revealed.

Jonathan Ransom returns as the resourceful doctor thrown into a shadowy world of double and triple agents where absolutely no one can be trusted. To stay alive, Ransom must unravel the mystery surrounding his wife—an enigmatic and lethal spy who plays by her own rules—and discover where her loyalties truly lie.

Rules of Betrayal is a masterfully plotted novel that cements Christopher Reich’s reputation as one of the most admired espionage thriller writers today.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Reich's outstanding third thriller featuring Dr. Jonathan Ransom (after Rules of Vengeance) finds the courageous surgeon, who no longer works for Doctors Without Borders, in the hinterlands of Afghanistan, where he gets caught in a Taliban raid that ends with him being choppered out of a vicious firefight. As in the two previous novels, Jonathan becomes enmeshed in a mission that's run by Division, a secret U.S. government agency. The series' ongoing and fascinating twist is that Jonathan's wife, the extremely capable and extremely deadly Emma, may or may not be a Division agent, a Russian spy, or something else entirely. Jonathan willingly enters the dark world of espionage to rescue Emma after she falls afoul of Taliban warrior Sultan Haq and an evil arms dealer known as Lord Balfour. Emma's liberation of a nuclear bomb lost by the U.S. in the mountains of Pakistan in 1980 leads to an untied thread that will have readers eagerly awaiting the next installment.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Surgeon Jonathan Ransom and his secret-agent wife, Emma, return in this third installment of Reich's Rules series. Working in Afghanistan for Doctors without Borders, Jonathan has an accidental encounter with a terrorist, from whom he barely escapes. Back in the U.S., he is recruited by his wife's agency. Emma has disappeared while investigating the possible acquisition of a nuclear weapon by a terrorist cell, and now her only hope of rescue lies with her husband. Does Jonathan have the skills to become a spy and save the woman he loves? Of course, betrayal is the name of the game here. Reich's ability to craft tense story lines and to populate his high-concept spy thrillers with fully developed main characters quickly have made him one of the new masters in the spy game. It's a bit disappointing, though, that Jonathan gets drafted into the game this time, because it's more fun if he's an outsider. That nitpick aside, this is still a fine effort from the reliable Reich. The number-one rule about his Rules novels: read them. --Jeff Ayers --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Unabridged edition (July 13, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0739384988
• ISBN-13: 978-0739384985
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 1.1 x 5.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (73 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #469,673 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Hi Everyone,

It's great to be part of Amazon's new Author Page. Here's a short bio.

I was born November 12, 1961 in Tokyo, Japan and moved to Los Angeles four years later, in late 1965. I graduated from Harvard School (now Harvard-Westlake) in 1979, then made the move to Washington DC where I attended the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Upon graduating with a degree in international economics (a field in which I was neither particularly gifted nor interested), I worked as a stock broker for two years. One day my best client said, "Chris, you're a nice guy, but you have no idea what you're doing in this business. You might get into trouble one day. You gotta get your butt to business school." I followed his advice and headed down to Austin, Tx, to earn an MBA at UT.

After graduating from UT, I moved even farther east....all the way to Switzerland, where I joined the Union Bank of Switzerland, first in Geneva and then in Zurich. I left banking and worked first as a consultant, and then as the CEO of a small watch company in Neuchatel. The only thing I missed out on was the chocolate business! Anyway, after 7 years in Switzerland, I decided that it was high time to become an author. I'd never written a short story and I hadn't taken a single English class in college. So what? I was a demon reader and I thought for sure I could do. My wonderful wife supported the decision wholeheartedly and we moved back to Austin, where I would write my first novel, Numbered Account.

The rest, as they say, is history....Or, as I say, "history in the making!!"

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars best in series, June 25, 2010

By 

M. S. Butch (Katonah, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rules of Betrayal (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"Rules of Betrayal" is the third volume in a series starring idealistic doctor Jonathan Ransom and his superspy wife, Emma. In my opinion, it is the best so far. Of course, the plot is implausible, to say the least, but if you object to such things you would not read most thrillers, including the two previous books in the series. One of the improvements I saw in "Betrayal" was a switch from a pure "chase" plot -- in which the good guys spend most of the book running away from baddies who are trying -- usually for unknown reasons -- to kill them -- to a plot in which the good guys have some idea what's going on, and act with purpose. I'm tired of the pure "chase and shoot." In "Betrayal," Ransom is once again providing free medical services to the needy in the third world, when he discovers that he has been used as a pawn by "the Division" (the obscure branch of U.S. intelligence for which his wife formerly worked), in one of its operations. Rescued by the Division from the resulting melee, he is persuaded to join up to help with the next operation.

At least one of the baddies is a "James Bond" type villain -- fabulously rich and eccentric, but with a chip on his shoulder because of his impoverished background. I kept thinking of those baddies who capture Bond and offer him every luxury before they begin to torture him ("Mr. Bond, how about one last bimbo before I feed you to my pet shark? Do you prefer blonde or brunette?) More jarring to me were a couple of spots where the plot just plain failed to offer any explanation for what happened next. For example, when Emma is "outed" as an agent and tortured by her enemies, she immediately concludes that her mentor, Frank Connor, deliberately arranged for her to be killed, without once considering whether someone else might have done it. This was important to the plot but makes no sense.

On the whole, however, "Rules of Betrayal" is entertaining, and if you read the preceding volumes, you will not want to miss it.

28 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reader at a disadvantage, June 30, 2010

By 

Bookworm "jcc" (Colorado Springs, CO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rules of Betrayal (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

No doubt I'd appreciate the plot and characters more if I'd read other Christopher Reich thrillers. The author seems to assume that the reader knows all about Jonathan and Emma and Frank, but I didn't, and the tidbits I got along the way weren't really enough to flesh out those characters. I consider this a flaw. To contrast this series with another, the first Jack Reacher novel I read was the fifth or sixth one in the series, but Lee Child masterfully characterized Reacher in that book. After reading it, I went back to the first in the series and got caught up, but I didn't feel I'd missed something by starting later in the series. In Rules of Betrayal, I never felt I'd gotten to know those characters very well. Having said that, the action and suspense were good enough to hold my attention to the very end.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better than "Rules of Vengeance", July 6, 2010

By 

Howard W. (Santa Clarita, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Rules of Betrayal (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

When I reviewed the previous book in the Ransom series "Rules of Vengeance", I wasn't fair to the story line because I found it so unbelievable. Dr. Jonathan Ransom could do anything he needed to do, to anybody that needed it done to. And he did it all without any formal "spy" training.

In this book, "Rules of Betrayal", Christopher Reich, toned it down a bit, thus making it much more believable. Because of that, I found this a much more enjoyable book. It is a good spy and action novel with several unexpected events taking place.

This book starts not too far after "Rules of Vengeance" with Dr. Ransom again trying to be the best person he can be, while the spy world takes advantage of his trusting nature. Without giving away any spoilers, as in the past books, Jonathan has to save the day.

I look forward to the next book in the Ransom saga.